<p>When I was thirteen I’d ride my bike out around 4 AM to deliver papers in the Bay Area. I remember reading the headlines about the Zodiac killer and it was pretty scary.</p>
<p>Later, as a teenage boy, of course I was never scared of anything. However I did work at the Rolling Hills theatre around the time of what was called the Rolling Hills Theater massacre.</p>
<p>I’ve got other examples, but I won’t bore everyone with them.</p>
<p>If you’re involved in a gang or lving in a high crime area, you probably have good reason to fear for your life. But IMO, worrying excessively about mass shootings or random crime in most areas is statistically unwarranted. I’d bet teenagers are far more likely to be killed driving stupidly or in some other risky behavior. And that’s probably always been true. </p>
<p>By the time of my high school graduation, the Vietnam draft was winding down. But I remember some of my older classmates being a little frightened about that.</p>
<p>'Honestly, do any of you recall actually fearing for your life as a child? If so, please explain."</p>
<p>I’m sure everybody feared for their lives at some point as child. I often feared for me and my families lives during these God awful hikes my parents used to take us on, in bad weather and with poor equipment, getting lost. They fully admit it is a miracle we are all alive today. Walking around downtown in the middle of the night, just got lucky nothing happened. Having a house burn down around me when I was 13 (furnace caught on fire). I could go on all day.</p>
<p>Plus, me and my sisters beds (I don’t call it a bedroom) were in the basement for years. We feared that if the rats and spiders didn’t get us, the vampires that lived under the stairs would. To this day, we still get the willies walking down those stairs…</p>
<p>California did it somewhat differently – only the top 1/8 of high school graduates got to go to UC as freshmen, and only the top 1/3 got to go to CSU as freshmen (though they used GPA and test score thresholds approximating that statewide class rank rather than using one’s class rank within one’s high school). Everyone else could go to community college and then transfer. The latter was a great way for a high school slacker to shape up academically and later transfer to complete a bachelor’s degree. But implicit was the “weeding” process (i.e. needing to do well in true college-level courses at the community college), including competition for transfer admissions at many UCs and CSUs.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, budget cuts make the community college route less attractive, due to limitations on course offerings. So the “second chance” is less available than it once was.</p>
<p>Fearing for my life? Many times - and I grew up in a rural area that seems practically Mayberry-esque in retrospect.</p>
<p>A childhood friend escaped an attempted abduction by a stranger; the man was never caught. As I walked to and from school for years, I was often scared that the stranger would return. When I was older, I was afraid of drunk drivers after one of them plowed into a friend’s car. And like busdriver, I was afraid of spiders and vampires (I blame “Dark Shadows.”)</p>
<p>There’s scary stuff everywhere and in every time period. The thing is, today we have 24-hour news channels and the Internet to broadcast (and amplify) all the scary stuff.</p>
<p>That rare events like airplane crashes make the news can cause many people to have a skewed assessment of the risk involved in flying a scheduled commercial airline flight versus the risk involved in driving or riding in a car.</p>
<p>A kid got beat up for being Jewish on Sunday at an off campus party. The people yelled Heil Hitler and claimed to be part of the KKK. The kid was knocked unconscious and his jaw was busted open. </p>
<p>I can honestly say that as a person with Jewish heritage (and who apparently “looks Jewish”), I am still not afraid to walk around the campus or whatnot. </p>
<p>I was also not raised in a family of fear though. I was allowed to go as far as I wanted on a bike and I started flying cross country by myself at the age of 12. I was left home for VERY long periods of time starting at age 15ish, including an empty house for a whole summer when I was 16.</p>
<p>When I was in elementary school, we had to do the drills in which we ducked and covered, in our case in an interior hallway, since the school building was modern and had lots of glass. At the same time, everyone always said that since we were within 50 miles of NYC we all be vaporized or roasted in the firestorm anyway.</p>
<p>I can’t say that this put me in real, immediate fear for my life, though.</p>
<p>Alcohol probably reduces the inhibitions of those who may start fights (including hatemongers). Unwanted sexual advances, or apparently-consensual-but-under-the-influence sexual activity that one may regret later, can also be a problem in such situations. Alcohol-fueled parties near college campuses are probably among the more dangerous places for a college student to be.</p>
<p>Tbh, I don’t really care how drunk you are. If you’re that way drunk, you are that way sober. That amount of hate doesn’t go away. It just needs a spark. If it’s not the alcohol, it will be something else eventually.</p>
<p>Romani, have you revealed where you go to school? I was just looking at some stories and read the one you are referring to. It is unbelievable that something like this can happen at college.</p>
<p>However, the likelihood of a college student encountering alcohol-related trouble is likely far greater than the likelihood of a college student of being attacked by violent hatemongers, especially in the absence of alcohol.</p>
<p>Emphasis on the word “minor.” Both my sons write custom code for websites and one of my tasks is to test for bugs, sometimes obscure ones. We work in real time, often from multiple cities, via phone and text messaging. Lots of little stuff gets fixed in seconds.</p>
<p>I grew up in NYC and remember the air raid drills. Like ducking under a desk would protect you from a A-bomb. But then again, it was a Catholic school and we were all damned anyway…</p>
<p>I just read about the MSU student, and I have to say that there’s something screwy about the story–I would suggest waiting for more details before categorizing it.</p>
<p>Hunt, that wasn’t really my point. Whether it really happened or not is besides the point. It’s more the fact that the story was widely reported as a hate crime and would be enough to set many Jewish students on edge. Whether it’s true or not, the story is firmly in our minds now.</p>
<p>WOW apparently a lot of people grew up thinking their life was in danger.</p>
<p>So, is a kid “coddled” if the parent tries to provide an environment and experiece for that child that doesn’t have the child think their life is in danger?</p>
<p>Using some of the examples given, is a child “coddled” if not forced to sleep in a rat and spider infested basement?</p>
<p>Is it coddling if your child has it “easier” than you did?</p>